Princeton Fires Tenured Professor in Campus Controversy

A Princeton classics professor was fired, “efficient instantly,” on Monday after the college’s administration discovered that he had not been totally sincere and cooperative with an investigation into his sexual relationship with an undergraduate pupil about 15 years in the past.

The dismissal of the professor, Joshua Katz, was a uncommon case of a tenured professor being dismissed, and got here after a fierce debate on campus and in wider political spheres over whether or not he was focused for his politics. In 2020, he wrote an article in Quillette, an internet journal, which criticized anti-racist proposals by Princeton college, college students and workers.

The college’s assertion on the firing didn’t even allude to the free speech situation. The explanations the college gave for dismissal had been based mostly on a “detailed written criticism from an alumna who had a consensual relationship with Dr. Katz whereas she was an undergraduate underneath his tutorial supervision.” That relationship was in 2006 and 2007, however the alumna didn’t file her criticism till 2021.

Dr. Katz declined to remark instantly. However his lawyer, Samantha Harris, mentioned Dr. Katz was not stunned by his firing.

She mentioned the college’s assertion that Dr. Katz had tried to impede the investigation into his sexual relationship with the coed was a “mischaracterization.”

And he or she mentioned, “The college’s choice could have a strong chilling impact on free speech, as a result of anybody who may want to categorical a controversial opinion is aware of that they need to first ask themselves if their private life can stand as much as the type of relentless scrutiny that Dr. Katz’s life was subjected to starting simply days after the publication of his Quillette article.”

Princeton’s president, Christopher Eisgruber, addressed the talk over Dr. Katz throughout remarks Saturday to alumni who had returned to campus for reunions.

He defended his document on free speech, and mentioned the college needed to act when college violated conduct guidelines.

“We take these guidelines very significantly right here and we imagine {that a} college member is sure by these obligations, no matter how distinguished they might be, and no matter what their political opinions could also be,” he mentioned. “Political opinions aren’t a motive to research anyone. They’re additionally not a protection for investigating anyone.”

The college’s assertion mentioned a 2021 investigation had “established a number of situations wherein Dr. Katz misrepresented information or did not be simple” throughout an earlier 2018 Princeton investigation into the connection with the undergraduate.

One such occasion, the assertion mentioned, was “a profitable effort to discourage the alumna from collaborating and cooperating after she expressed the intent to take action.” The investigation additionally discovered that “Dr. Katz uncovered the alumna to hurt whereas she was an undergraduate by discouraging her from looking for psychological well being care though he knew her to be in misery, all in an effort to hide a relationship he knew was prohibited by college guidelines,” in keeping with the assertion.

These actions, the assertion mentioned, had been “not solely egregious violations of college coverage, but additionally fully inconsistent along with his obligations as a member of the college.”

Ms. Harris mentioned that investigators had taken issues mentioned between Dr. Katz and his former pupil throughout bursts of anger and frustration at a worrying time, and turned them into far more damning statements, which had been belied by context he offered in contemporaneous emails.

Dr. Katz and his allies identified that he had already been punished as soon as — by being suspended — for the connection, and contended that it was being resurrected as a pretext to retaliate towards him for the Quillette article. The article criticized anti-racist proposals in a July 2020 letter signed by greater than 300 Princeton college, college students and workers.

In essentially the most broadly quoted and reviled component of his article, he known as a pupil group, the Black Justice League, a “small native terrorist group” that had made the lives of many college students, together with Black college students, depressing.

The firing was anticipated after Princeton’s president, Mr. Eisgruber, really helpful his termination in a Could 10 letter to the chair of the board of trustees.

The dismissal didn’t go easily. When informed that Princeton had introduced his firing, Dr. Katz’s spouse, Solveig Gold mentioned, “That’s information to me. Now we have nothing.” She added, “It’s fairly damning that we don’t have it ourselves.”

She later mentioned that Dr. Katz had found that the college’s discover that he was being fired had been despatched to the incorrect e-mail.